In 2021, we were still trying to understand what was happening in Turkey.
We were seeing fragments. Reports. Videos that didn’t quite make sense on their own.
Then came a speech by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and everything seemed to shift.
Dogs began disappearing from the streets. Not gradually. Not quietly.
But in a way that people on the ground could feel. Removed. Transported.
Taken to forests and mountainous areas, far from the communities they had lived in and in many cases, left without food, water, or any means of survival.
We needed to find out exactly what was happening.
An animal advocate, speaking from inside Turkey, trying to explain what was happening while it was still unfolding.
It was one of the first moments we stopped looking at this as isolated incidents. And started to understand it as something systemic.
Looking back now, this interview matters for a different reason. Not because it tells the whole story. But because it captures the moment before we fully knew what we were seeing. Before we had the language for it. Before we had the experience.
Before Dog Desk Animal Action became what it is today.
We often get asked how this work started.
It didn’t start with a plan. It didn’t start with certainty. It started here.
With listening. With trying to understand. With deciding that once you see something clearly, you don’t get to look away.
